


Kiss me with your mouth open

by maharetr



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Canon Lesbian Relationship, Clueless Ellie, Determined Dina, Ellie is a mess, F/F, based entirely on trailer material, no spoilers for Part II, the last of us part ii
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:40:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24840064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maharetr/pseuds/maharetr
Summary: Last night, Ellie thinks herself saying, and her throat closes up so hard she chokes on her sandwich. Dina whacks her on the back.Did...did you mean it?
Relationships: Dina/Ellie (The Last of Us)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 271
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	Kiss me with your mouth open

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheseusInTheMaze](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheseusInTheMaze/gifts).



> (Note probably only of interest to ThesusInTheMaze specifically)
> 
> Dear ThesusInTheMaze!  
> Way back in January for 2020's Chocolate Box, I matched with you with The Last Of Us. I read your prompt, spent a while thinking about it on a car trip with friends during which I shouted aloud "and Riley was an omega! Oh _fuck_!" Cue much needed background discussion, and then me writing frantically to get all my ideas down. I thought I could get it done in 4000 words, and by deadline. Um. Yeah. So I wrote you the Dr Who fic instead. Which I enjoyed! But it was this fic that I _loved_ , that I...panicked about and hid it in a virtual drawer, let's be real. I've avoided all leak talk. I've avoided all the spoilers I can. I hope this isn't too 'late' (lol, it's staggeringly late, but you know what I mean). I hope you like it. <3 Maharetr
> 
> Title is from The Mountain Goats' song Dilaudid.

It’s not like they’ve never danced before -- dancing with Dina at these things is about the only thing that makes them bearable -- but there’s dancing, and then there’s _this_. This thing where Dina’s been dancing with everyone like she’s about to go into heat, but it’s Ellie she’s slowing down with, swaying with, and it’s Ellie she’s leaning in on and all but _scent marking_ in the middle of the dance floor. Ellie’s cheeks are burning, and she keeps her hands on Dina’s hips in part to hold herself steady, and mostly because it's the best she can do to keep her hands to herself.

"People are staring at you," Ellie mutters -- and they are, because Dina’s free as a bird, and that’s got the eye of every alpha in the room, even though Dina is just having fun – under the smell of her fresh sweat, she smells like regular Dina woody and clean, no hint of the smokiness of her impending heat.

"Maybe they’re staring at you," Dina breathes against Ellie’s ear, and Ellie’s going to blame her incoherent stumbling on the booze.

"Nobody’s looking at me right now, trust me."

They’re close enough that Dina has to feel how hard Ellie’s heart is pounding, but Dina's polite enough not to react to it – or, well, not overtly, but she’s got that gleam in her eye that makes Ellie's breath catch. She looks absolutely gorgeous.

"Maybe they’re jealous of _you_ ," Dina murmurs.

 _Should they be?_ Ellie wants to ask. She’s nearly, nearly drunk enough to do it. Her alpha stirs interestedly, and it’s and it’s hope and yearning in Ellie’s chest.

"I’m just a girl," she manages instead. "Not a threat."

"Oh, Ellie," Dina breathes. "I think they should be terrified of you." They're close enough that Dina's breath is warm on Ellie's face, and when Dina leans in, it feels like no distance at all.

Dina’s lips are warm and dry and tentative, and Ellie gets whole seconds savoring Dina’s soft, chapped lips, and Ellie opens her mouth and gets the taste of bourbon and the _taste_ of Dina, and they're barely moving, barely breathing, and Ellie's world tilts on its axis anyway, and the joyous, roaring alpha surge is nothing she can control, nothing she _wants_ to control.

 _Mine?_ her alpha asks, and it’s the last conscious thought either of them manage for god knows how long. Until Dina breaks the kiss enough to smile against Ellie's mouth. Eons.

"See?" Dina breathes. "They should be terrified of you."

Ellie opens her eyes, and Dina's right there. She can't tear her gaze away from the pleased sparkle in Dina's eyes, but her alpha is still prowling, too -- she doesn’t _need_ to look to know exactly where everyone else is in the room. She can make out the scents of individual alphas -- Jesse, Sam, Janine, Marina -- and the omegas like Paula and Steve, and knows through long familiarity of Jackson the spaces of non-scent the betas leave. Kat's here somewhere. She also doesn't need to look to know the couples nearest them have backed up, giving them space, giving _Ellie_ space as she rests her forehead against Dina’s, heart pounding in her ears. _Mineminemine_

It’s joy and exhilaration and relief and...fear.

Everyone here is _pack_ she tries to tell her alpha, herself, tries to tell her dry mouth, her heart rate that isn’t settling. There’s no infected here, no danger to Dina in the slightest. _Safe_ she tells her alpha. _Pack_ her alpha agrees, but that doesn't help ease any of the panic.

Dina's smelled the change. There's a tiny crease forming between her eyebrows, and Ellie can't bear the concern and care in Dina's expression. She backs up out of Dina's embrace, and catches Dina's hands in her own.

"I should– I gotta–" She raises Dina's hands to her mouth and kisses them, tries to press an apology to Dina's knuckles as the terror tightens her chest. Dina's frown is deepening, her reddened lips parting with a question and Ellie _can't_.

"It's been great," Ellie manages. She gives one last squeeze, and swings their arms down and releases, lightly, like the final step in their dance. "See you tomorrow," she chokes out. She turns away, and people step out of her path like she's Moses through the red sea. She staggers out into the freezing night air, leaving Dina safe and warm and nowhere near Ellie's fucked-upness.

She thought she was doing okay. Okay with _everything_ , and yet here she is, stumbling home, trying to listen for runners and clickers and whatever else must be incoming after something that good. The alpha fizzing through her veins is looking for something to do with all that adrenaline, and all she's got is her knife and shadows to jump at.

The wind is nudging at her back as she turns on to her street at last, so she sees the silhouette of a person standing on her porch and has time to tense before she gets close enough to catch that particular alpha scent.

"The fuck," she says, tiredly.

"Jackson gossip mill moves faster than you can walk, kid," Joel says, drily. He holds up two bottles hanging between his fingers. "Kat said y'might want someone to talk to."

 _Christ_. That… The wave of affection and exhaustion makes her eyes sting again. "I really, really don't."

Joel shrugs. "You wanna let me warm up a little before I walk home, then?"

"Asshole," she mutters, but she fumbles her key out with cold fingers, and shoves open the front door. Her apartment isn't that much warmer than outside, but it'll do.

"That military school ran deep, huh?" Joel says. He's looking around her kitchen and the attached living room, and she knows what he's seeing: Kat's clutter, her art supplies and the rest of her mess, gone; Ellie's spartan ways left behind. It looks about as lonely as Ellie feels right about now. She closes her eyes. She wonders what Dina's things might look like all over the kitchen table, and she clenches her jaw against the band tightening her chest again. Goddammit.

Joel's already in the living room, plonking down the beers on the coffee table and making himself at home on one of the couches. Kat had knit them–and then left Ellie–throws to hide the worst of the cracks in the leather, and the colors are the only bright spots in the room. Ellie's probably got enough saved from all her extra patrols to get the couches fixed up, but then she'd have to admit how much she doesn't want to admit how much she wants to keep the throws.

Joel stretches out, thudding his boots onto her coffee table and resting his head on the seat back, looking like he's settling in for a nap. She snags one of the beers.

"You got me light beer," she says.

"You got patrol tomorrow morning."

"Asshole," she says, this time as thanks. He smiles a little.

She sits on the other couch, and her hands shake only slightly as she twists off the bottle cap. She tells herself it's the cold, and drags one of the throws around her shoulders, and drags in a few slightly steadier breaths. It helps, a little.

"You've been moonin' after her for a while now," Joel says, almost absently, and she feels her body lock up, hard.

"Doesn't mean I should _do_ anything about it," she snaps. "Doesn't make it okay to do anything about it."

"Don’t it?" Joel asks.

"I can’t—" Ellie's voice cracks, and she closes her eyes to get the words out. "I can’t keep her safe."

Joel gives a bark of laughter. "You've _seen_ Dina out on patrol. She can look out for herself just fine. It is in no way your job."

 _Riley was just as good_ Ellie thinks, and the beer rolls in her stomach.

"You warm enough yet?" she snaps.

"You okay enough yet?" Joel shoots back, mildly, and Ellie swallows thickly.

"You don’t have to go out, tomorrow, if you don’t want," he says. She glares at him. "I’ll run your route for you, if you’re…"

 _Too fucked up?_ Ellie thinks grimly.

"No," she says. "It’s mine. I’ll do it." Which isn’t the same as being okay enough, and they both know it, but he gives her the grace of not pushing it, and takes the bottles with him when he goes rather than leave her to clean up.

Her sleep that night is disjointed, fractured into dreams of Dina’s lips, of Dina’s smile against her mouth, and when Ellie pulls back, it’s Riley's face, Riley’s mouth contorting as the infection takes hold, and Ellie can’t stop it, can’t save her, can’t pull the trigger, _can’t_ \--

She lies awake for a long time. 

~*~

Staggering out of bed the next morning, trying to scrub herself awake in a lukewarm shower, she nearly takes Joel up on it. She runs it in her head – heading over to his house, dragging him out of bed, most likely. He’d do it, too, with barely a grumble. And then she’d turn around and come back home to… yeah. She looks around her empty house. Everyone else on Ellie’s list of friends was going out on patrol. Besides, Dina is, too, and that thought helps with the waking-up process.

She gets her pack sorted and her boots on, and double-time marching gets her there fast enough to earn her only a mildly reproving look from Jesse. "Look who decided to join us," he says as Ellie unties Temper and boosts herself into the saddle.

"You okay?" Dina murmurs. Her look is somewhere between smirk and searching, and the warmth in Dina's expression—just for Ellie, it feels like—is a better adrenaline kick than any coffee.

"I’m good," Ellie murmurs back, and fumbles open their map for the day's patrol.

"Sending you two south," Jesse says. "The supermarket needs re-checking. Southeastern patrols said they saw evidence of an incursion, maybe. Need to get that checked out in case they got a toehold again." He turns back to the main group, and pitches his voice to carry. "There's a storm forecast for after nightfall. Don't push your luck, or your time. Cut your routes short if you need to, just make sure you're back inside the gates well before dark, understood?"

Ellie grunts her affirmation, studying the map. She's not done the south routes as much, but the roads are marked as still intact enough to follow, and Dina's leaning in maddeningly close, touching the tracks and routes, danger points and bolt holes.

"Easy run," is all she says, and shifts away. Ellie focuses on getting the map folded neatly, and then getting her mouth to work. "I'm good with easy," she says.

" _Sure_ you are," Dina shoots back, and Ellie finds herself grinning at Dina's back as they ride out. Riding is a good, familiar reassurance, as is the banter as they head out. The cold air clears her head, and the low wind brings Dina’s scent in from ahead, and by the time they’re crouched in the tree line near the supermarket hours later, Ellie is calm and her alpha is prowling for a different sort of fun.

"Definitely spores," Dina murmurs, the binoculars pressed to her face. "And, yeah, east windows, you see that?" She passes the binoculars over, and Ellie adjusts the gauge and spies the lurching silhouette almost immediately. "You wanna?" Dina asks, and hell yes, Ellie really does.

The rhythms of scouting and clearing out the supermarket are just as reassuring has riding out had been, even if she'd never admit it out loud. She's not done this building before, but Dina's done it plenty, and it's so easy, so good, to be moving in silent tandem together. Even the guttural _tick ticktick_ of the Clickers is … soothing. Holding still, holding her tension on the trigger, holding for the perfect shot. This, _this_ , is something she knows exactly how to do. She doesn't need to think, or even worry. There's just assessing and reacting and moving together in a dance that she knows the exact steps of.

There’s the alpha pleasure of the kill, and the pack pleasure of protecting and defending, keeping everyone safe -- even if it’s just the two of them out here, there’s the entire Jackson county behind those walls.

It's barely past noon when they emerge back into the cold, bright daylight. They mark their logbooks and eat lunch off the road, on a log with a good vantage point of the ruined areas of Jackson. Most of it has succumbed to the elements and the ravages of time left untended, and it's still familiar, still familiar, and Dina's warmth as they sit shoulder to shoulder is an ache pleasant in its familiarity.

 _Last night_ , Ellie thinks herself saying, and her throat closes up so hard she chokes on her sandwich. Dina whacks her on the back.

"Okay?" Dina asks.

 _No,_ Ellie thinks, even as she's nodding. _Was it to rub Jesse's nose in it? Were you showing off?_. She presses her gloved fist to her mouth to keep the words inside. Dina's hand is still on Ellie's back, far longer than it needs to be. _Did…did you mean it?_

Dina gives her back one last pat, then turns away like nothing's out of the ordinary, and brings out the maps. "We're way ahead of schedule. Want to take the long way home?"

Ellie really does. They check the horses, check their weapons, and mount up. The wind nips at their backs all afternoon, and it's still a couple of good hours marking their logs, following the creek along its meandering way south east. It's not until Ellie looks back to double check their bearings and gets not just a breeze on her cheeks but a cold slap of wind to her face that she realizes something's wrong.

The light on the horizon is too flat and grey. Those are storm clouds muting the winter sunset.

Ellie tries to calculate how far they are from Jackson's walls. Not good.

"Dina," she shouts. "We should turn back!"

Dina wheels Hurtle around, and pulls the same startled face Ellie must have a moment ago. Ellie turns too, taking point, and winces – the cold air that had been pushing them on is starting to blow flurries of snow in their way, and making it doubly hard to look ahead. Dina pulls level with her, and Ellie tracks the dark shape of Dina’s horse in the gathering white, between bouts of keeping her head down and trying to keep track of the creek, trying to remember how far out they were from the boltholes, and then when she looks up again Dina’s shape is gone from her right.

"Dina!" Ellie shouts. The wind whips her voice away and is making scenting impossible. "Dina! Where are you?" 

She’s alone in a swirling field of white and stopping is death, and panic isn’t going to keep her any safer, but that’s not helping any with the real fear that’s starting to gnaw at her. She’s got no choice but to trust her horse and keep straining her voice and her ears.

" _Ellie?_ " Dina's voice is faint enough that Ellie might have missed it if the wind had been against them.

"Dina!" Ellie shouts, her throat sore with it, and can finally make out the shape of a building ahead to her left. 

_"Ellie!"_ Thank _fuck_.

"Here," Ellie tries to shout, but it’s a croak now, and it’s better to just urge Temper into a stumbling trot until she can make out Dina standing near the double glass doors. Dismounting is conscious, stiff effort, and then Dina’s half knocking her into Temper’s side.

"Scared the shit out of me," Dina gasps, grabbing her in a one-armed hug, her other hand tight on Hurtle’s reins.

" _You_ ran off," Ellie wheezes back, and doesn’t let go of Dina’s jacket until they need two sets of hands to fight the doors open against the wind and get the horses inside. The wind slams the doors closed for them.

"Central heating’s out again," Dina says, drily, but being out of the wind is heavenly. The storm’s reducing their light, but Ellie can make out that they're in a foyer, carpet rotted away in places to the concrete below. There are display cases against the wall, some still holding tattered welcome posters, most empty and dusty. The library, Ellie realizes. Bolthole four on the map, and prepped accordingly -- there’s feed for the horses, and blankets.

Dina’s trying to peer out the glass, and grimaces. "We're gonna miss check-in by a mile -- or a night, even." She throws a grin in Ellie’s direction. "Your dad’s gonna freak."

Ellie starts in on de-tacking Temper, fumbling the saddle off with stiff fingers. "He’s not my dad. Not really."

"Sure acts like one," Dina says.

"Sure acts like a pain in my ass," Ellie mutters, and Dina laughs.

They settle the horses and rug them up. Dina turns to the inner doors first, but hesitates, half-blocking Ellie’s way.

"Sorry," Dina says, her hand resting on the door handle. "There's side rooms we can sleep in, maybe, if you'd rather…" She pushes open the door, the hinges protesting with a creak.

The seals on the inner doors have held out the worst of the cold, and also held in the smells. The scents themselves are old enough that Ellie has time to admire what she's seeing: this had been the main library, a good-size space that she can’t guess the depth of in the dim light coming through the windows. The books have been long since rescued to elsewhere, and the shelves are old and wooden and solid, many of them tipped onto their sides with defensive intent. They’re nearly a maze of defendable positions and cover. Ellie finds herself nodding approvingly. Then she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, and lets a little of Ellie drop, letting a little of the alpha up to the surface.

This is a nest. A place to shelter in times of need: storm, and cold, and sometimes—Ellie’s alpha stirs interestedly—heat. It's faint, but she can smell Jesse and Michael, and Mariella and Louise, and several of the other alphas from patrol, and she can smell Dina threaded throughout, and Dina's pleasure. Her alpha wants to growl defensively, but the scents are faint enough that they're old, and Ellie knows their grins and their laughter and their companionship of countless patrol debriefs and celebrations. _Pack_ , her alpha agrees. 

"Smells like home," Ellie says, and she means it. Dina's face breaks into a relieved grin, and both Ellie and her alpha want to do something with that. Ellie bites her lip. 

"There's a side way out," Dina says. "Here." She takes Ellie's hand like it's the most natural thing in the world, and Ellie's heart stutters. "Lemme show you."

 _No one's watching now,_ Ellie thinks, and her alpha is barely breathing, either. Ellie's hands are aching with the cold, but even through her gloves, she fancies she can feel the warmth of Dina's hand.

Ellie lets Dina lead the way to the west side of the building, ducking them through the first of the barricades west side of the building, where slipping through a slight gap in the barricades leads them to a narrow corridor running parallel to the wall, easy enough for a careful person in full control of their faculties to navigate, less so for a wild, staggering runner, or a clicker. Dina lets go of Ellie's hand for them to walk in the necessary single file. _Entirely_ necessary, Ellie tells herself and her alpha. It only sort of helps.

Halfway along the wall is the fire door, exit light long dark. The busted lock has been replaced by a hefty sliding bolt. Ellie tests it, and the bolt slips almost soundlessly free. She nods approvingly and relocks it. They continue down the alley of shelves to the far corner of the building.

The nest itself is – not a nest right now. It's four single mattresses spread out for four single sleepers, and multiple closed footlockers. There's a line of candles melded to plates by their own rivulets of wax. This has every appearance of a patrol bolt hole, and a good, defendable one at that – but it would take less than a minute's work to kick those mattresses together, and spread out those pillows and blankets into a just as serviceable bolt hole in multiple types of … need. Ellie realizes she's fucking blushing, and ducks her head. Dina is biting her lip, but also grinning a little.

"Okay?" Dina asks. Ellie nods. She can't do anything about her burning cheeks, but she can damn well straighten up and act mature about all of this. They dig through the lockers together, unearthing blankets and pillows and cans of beans, and pouches of dried meat.

Lighting the candles, making the beds and joking over the food – "You want beans, or jerky, or jerky and beans?" – feels like home in a way that Kat and her soothing beta nature had made Ellie's house feel like a home. Warmth and companionship, even if she's physically cold this time round. And this time around, her alpha feels like it's pacing, circling, circling hopefully.

They eat on separate beds, facing each other, and there's no need for them to push their legs into each other's space, but they do it anyway. Ellie's alpha points out Dina's heart is beating a little faster. Ellie tucks her hands into her armpits -- it’s cold, sure, but hugging herself also helps with the anxious flutter of her own heartbeat. Dina leans over and rummages in the lockbox at the end of her bed, and holds up a crumpled bag. _That_ scent, Ellie knows exactly what to do with. "It's a little stale, maybe," Dina says. "But…wanna?"

"God, yes," Ellie says, and she doesn't even care if she sounds too keen.

Dina lights the joint from one of the candles and settles back on her bed. She inhales with practiced ease, and passes it over. Ellie's inhale is nowhere near as practiced – the smoke gets up her nose and catches in her mouth, and her eyes water, but Dina is kind enough not to laugh at Ellie's smothered cough. Dina takes another drag, and breaks out the smirk for something else entirely.

"Scale of one to ten," Dina says. "How would you rate our kiss from last night?" They do this ranking all the time, for jokes, for bets, to pass the time, and Dina's even moving to pass her the joint like she weren't asking about the foundations of Ellie's world, as if she weren't talking about –

"Everything," Ellie whispers, and she can't blame this on the weed. "It was everything."

Dina blinks, and pulls back, and her gaze skitters away. Ellie's chest squeezes, because she cannot bear it if she's spooking Dina, if she’s fucked this up by being too honest and too fucking needy, and then Dina raises her gaze to Ellie's face, and her face is soft and open and tender. 

"Good," Dina murmurs. "I mean—" She bites her lip. "It was good for me, too. Really good."

She raises the joint. "Want more?" she asks, she's offering the weed and the _everything_ , and _yes_ Ellie wants. Dina raises the joint to her own lips and takes in a lungful, holding it, and it's the most natural thing in the world for Ellie to crawl forward, press her lips to Dina's and take Dina's air into her own lungs. The smoke goes down smooth this time, but nothing could have compared to the intoxication that was Dina herself.

 _No one watching us now,_ Ellie has time to think, and Dina says "mmmph, hang on," against Ellie’s mouth, fumbles the joint out of harm’s way, and goes in for a second, proper kiss. It’s languid and hard and Ellie shivers and slides her hands into Dina’s hair and kisses back just as slow and forceful.

Dina slides her hands under Ellie’s shirt, and bare skin to skin is amazing and also _fuck_ too cold -- Ellie whines and squirms a protest, and _oh_ squirming is good. She shifts back enough to push Dina’s chest, lightly, and Dina, damn her, tightens her freezing hold on Ellie’s back and brings them down onto the bed together.

"Too cold," Ellie whines. Dina mercifully shifts her hands out of Ellie’s clothes. and Ellie grabs Dina’s hands, like the last step of their dance last night, and she holds on this time, somewhere between trying to warm Dina’s fingers and banish the memory of fleeing. She presses Dina’s hands to her own lips, reverently, and she closes her eyes, lets her alpha up, and when she opens her eyes, Dina is staring right back, lips parted in anticipation.

"Yeah," Dina breathes, and Ellie leans in again, straddling Dina’s hips this time, and pressing Dina’s hands to the mattress, and this time the press of their lips makes Dina keen softly, and when Dina parts her lips, their kiss this time is Dina _yielding_ , her omega scent washing over Ellie, hot and smoky. 

Ellie’s alpha slides into control, and Dina keens into Ellie’s mouth, rolling upwards, and Ellie grinds them back down, and Dina rolls, and fuck it's good, Ellie could come from this rocking alone, and it would be amazing, but Dina’s got the sense, enough for both of them, to gasp: "Wait, wait, there’s condoms, we can…"

The last thing in the _world_ Ellie’s alpha wants to do is break contact with Dina right now. _We’ll be quick_ Ellie promises, and forces herself to sit up. Dina scrabbles over to one of the boxes, and Ellie tries to breathe, tries to pick at her bootlaces, but her coordination is shot, and she’s tied them too well to be able to toe her way out of her boots. Dina crawls back to the bed, dropping the lambskin condoms onto the pillow, and then proves she's having just as many coordination issues as Ellie as she tackles her own boots.

"Bet you wish we were wearing sneakers now," Ellie manages, grinning, 

"Fuck it," Dina groans, and wrenches her boots off, and then goes for her own jeans, getting them open and shoving them down along with her thermals, and Dina isn’t even in _heat_ but the scent from her bare legs and from the slick of her groin is making Ellie unbearably hard. Ellie wants to bury her face in it, but Dina has other ideas, and is going for Ellie’s jeans instead.

"Careful, careful," Ellie gasps. It’s been her own hands for far too long, and she’s already so close, too close. They ease Ellie’s underwear down together, and Ellie’s cock juts free, seeping, and she can’t stop herself squirming and tugging at the loose skin around the base, where the promise of a knot aches. She'd be self-conscious, but Dina’s breath catches at the sight.

"Fuck," Dina breathes. "You look so good like this." With practiced assurance, she rolls the condom down over Ellie’s cock and straddles her thighs.

"We’ll make it better next time," Dina murmurs. 

" _Better_?" Ellie gasps. _Next time?_ her alpha asks, interestedly, and then Dina is settling herself onto Ellie’s cock and _squeezing_ , and the pleasure crashes through Ellie's body like a wave and there’s no words, and no thought after that, just holding onto Dina as her vision whites out.

Eons later, her alpha settles back, utterly spent, and Ellie is left trying to figure out the bounds of her body. They're knotted, Dina on top of her still, and it can't be warm enough for Dina's bare legs, but Ellie's also not sure how to move her fingers or her toes, let alone get together the coordination to pull up the blankets. Dina is curled against Ellie's chest, half-dozing, and Ellie strokes her back. The contentment wells up from deep in her chest but catches in her throat.

You okay? Was it good? is what Ellie tries to say, but what comes out is a ragged breath, mortifyingly close to a sob. She can't get away, and she doesn't _want_ to, but this was also all she'd ever wanted with Riley, and her grief – her _alpha's_ grief – is as startling as it is implacable. She squeezes her eyes closed, fighting to get her breathing under control. Dina's sitting up a little, murmuring concern.

"Sorry," Ellie gasps.

"For what?" Dina asks, gently, and Ellie _breaks_ , her breaths shuddering out of her chest, and there's no way to keep it penned, nothing Ellie can do but sob miserably, riding it out. 

Dina strokes her hair back from her face. "Hey," Dina murmurs. "Hey, hey. It's okay. I gotcha."

 _That's my job_ Ellie and her alpha think as one, and it doesn't help, exactly, but it steadies her, and she swipes at her nose with her shirt sleeve 

"First time?" Dina asks. She brushes away a last tear from Ellie's cheek. _No_ Ellie wants to say; she and Kat had had sex plenty, but nothing like this, like her soul had damn well been pulled out of her body and laid bare.

"I guess," Ellie mutters. Dina smiles and kisses the edge of Ellie's mouth. She settles back against Ellie's chest again, a welcome, grounding weight. Ellie strokes Dina's back, and Dina nuzzles Ellie's neck, sleepily. Her alpha all but _purrs_.

After the knot's gone down, it's a while before they untangle and sit up, and even then, it's just about them figuring how to get Ellie's boots off and wriggling her out of her jeans so that getting under the blankets together is more comfortable.

"We’re lucky we didn’t do this inside the walls," Dina murmurs against Ellie’s neck. She's tracing circles over Ellie's bare thigh. It is deeply, deeply distracting. "Whole of Jackson would’ve smelled this."

"They can probably smell us from here," Ellie says.

"And every last one of them is jealous," Dina says. Ellie props herself up on her elbow so she can drink in the sight of Dina's smile, and the play of candlelight over her freckled cheeks. She reaches out and cups Dina's face in her palm, stroking Dina's cheek with her thumb.

"Mine." Ellie realizes she's whispering aloud. Dina's smile broadens into something much deeper, and she turns her face against Ellie's hand to take Ellie's thumb into her mouth and _sucks_ , and oh god, that's not _fair_ \-- it goes straight to Ellie's cock. Ellie might be exhausted, but that doesn't stop her or her alpha from grabbing Dina's face and kissing her, ferociously.

"That's a ten," Dina manages, when they finally come up for air.

The second time is indeed better. Ellie’s clear-headed enough to pin Dina to the mattress in turn and use her hands and mouth to make _Dina_ absolutely incoherent this time, over and over, until Ellie’s hard again and until there’s no Ellie for a while, no boundary between the two of them. Ellie comes back to herself with Dina face down, Ellie inside her, and Ellie’s not even sure which one of them is shuddering through their orgasm, only that they’re knotted again, and Dina has entwined their fingers, holding on to Ellie as if they weren’t already bound to each other. Dina's tugging on their hands, so Ellie shifts her weight to her right forearm, only half-sure it will hold her up, and helps Dina bring their hands to her mouth to kiss their knuckles.

"You c’n..." Dina mumbles. She clears her throat, tries again a little clearer. "You can bite me, if you want."

Oh, _fuck_ , is Ellie’s barely-coherent thought. _Yesss_ her alpha thinks. She’s leaning in, her lips parting: Dina’s shoulder is right there, the juncture of her neck and shoulder muscle… but Ellie’s forearm is in her field of vision, too. The bite is a ghost now, only the tattoo and the acid scarring visible in the flickering candlelight, but the thought of Dina’s skin between her teeth is a wave of horror.

 _Fuck that_ Ellie thinks, and her alpha growls along with her. 

"Sorry," Dina whispers, trying to shift. "Sorry, sorry, if you don’t want --."

"I want," Ellie says against Dina’s skin. "I want, I want," and it’s a litany against the infected that bit her, against the everything that's making her eyes sting again. "Can we…" She shifts her weight to their entwined hands, and rests her left hand over Dina’s [scent glands/shoulder muscles]. "Can I…" Elie scratches, lightly, not even welting, and Dina groans, arching her neck. Dina gets her own arm under her to raise herself into it, clinging tight to Ellie’s right hand.

Ellie scratches again, red welts this time, and Dina tries to buck her hips back against Ellie’s, as if they could go anywhere during the knot, and it’s so good it almost hurts, and Ellie cries out, too. Ellie scratches, again and again, intoxicated with the blood and their scents and _mineminemine_ , and when Dina starts to shudder again, Ellie falls with her into one last excruciatingly good orgasm.

~*~

Ellie wakes to utter silence. The candles have long guttered out, and the library is shrouded in the darkness of proper night. The world is not entirely silent – Dina is breathing slow and deep, sprawled over Ellie’s side – but the storm has blown over, and the silence it replaces is its own sort of loud. It’s nice, but then the horses nicker uneasily -- _again_ , Ellie realizes – and her skin prickles with alarm.

The library door squeaks open, and with it comes the mix of scents of alphas and omegas, of _strangers_.

Ellie finds Dina’s shoulder and squeezes, steady pressure as a signal, and Dina tenses into awake alertness under Ellie’s hand.

"They’re probably gone by now." A high whisper, a guy’s voice, younger, uncertain.

"Then why are the horses still here, moron?" A woman’s voice, lower, softer. One of the alphas, Ellie’s nose suspects.

"They’re good horses," the guy whispers, much lower. "We could just take them, and –"

The inner door squeaks closed, muffling the rest of his sentence and sharpening the smell of two alphas, and three reddish glowing spots of flashlights covered by fingers. "Oh, yeah," someone says, barely audible but still far too pleased with herself. "You smell that?"

 _Not bandits_ Ellie has time to think. Bandits would have taken the horses and called it a good night’s pickings. This…what the hell was this?

"Fuck." One of the flashlights flares brightly as its owner stumbles into the first of the barricades. 

Dina inhales, and reaches across Ellie for one of the sidearms. Ellie takes the other one, starts easing upright, and only then remembers their clothes. Goddammit. She grabs her jeans, wriggling into them and thrusting on her boots. Dina's beside her in the dark, doing the same.

The red glows are bobbing around in the maze. Dina presses fingers against Ellie’s shoulder – they've slid into clicker protocol without even thinking. _Three?_. Ellie shakes her head: doesn’t smell right with what she sensed from the foyer. She presses _Four? Five?_ into Dina’s arm. The intruders are closer – Ellie can smell plain body odor of at least one beta as well as the two alpha scents, and an omega.

Dina rolls away to the right, and Ellie follows, keeping low, sidearm in her left hand, knife ready in the waistband of her jeans, brushing her right shoulder against the wall to stay oriented. They're most of the way to the fire door when the shout goes out from the nest corner: "One good live one, on the move! Guard the door!"

Ellie turns back, shifting her finger from the slide of her sidearm into the trigger guard, and brings her weapon up to track the muted glow of the flashlight. _One live what?_ she and her alpha think, coldly, and they tighten her finger on the trigger.

The foyer door squeaks again, and there’s more soft footfalls, and then there’s the plain body odor of an unfamiliar beta, the sound of his breathing getting between Dina and herself, and _how dare_ \--

Ellie can’t see to dare risk a shot, but Dina gives a sharp, angry cry yards ahead, and the man makes a wet, wounded grunt. Ellie hears the blade for the second strike, now that she’s listening for it, and she turns back to watch their six as the body thuds to the floor between them.

" _Fuck_ ," one of the flashlight alphas breathes, and Ellie lines up a shot a foot above the glow and squeezes the trigger. She's rewarded with a howl of pain, and then Dina shouts, a higher, more alarmed sound, and Ellie wheels around. Another beta is tangled with Dina, his arm around her throat, flashlight splashing wild light up in the wall, and Dina buries her knife in his thigh. He screams and staggers, but keeps his hold and his feet, and Ellie lunges over the body, going at the -- _live one_ she thinks, viciously -- with her own blade, and she gets him good and deep in the side of his neck. He's gurgling, dying on his feet, and something smashes into Ellie's shoulder, and all three of them go down.

Ellie twists, her shoulder a blaze of pain, and sees the blur of the rifle butt and rolls. It cracks into the guy's head, and if he weren't dead before, he sure as fuck is now –

"Hold!" The command is so calm, so assured that even Ellie freezes for half a second. It's half a second too long – someone's grabbing Ellie's boots and hauling her along the ground, away –

"Dina!" she screams. There's a knee in Ellie's back, and hands twisting her arms, and she hits the ground hard, cracking her chin against the floor. A dropped flashlight rolls along the floor, throwing bright light and harsh shadows.

Dina's scrambling still, fighting her way out from under the corpse and kicking at the approaching attackers, going for knees and groins even as they grab her arms and pin her down too.

"You _shit_ ," one of the guys roars, swinging wildly at Dina.

"Hold," the alpha says again, and the guy freezes, Dina freezes. For whole seconds there's only ragged breathing and the stink of blood and fear and the ozone smell of the omega expertly pinning Ellie to the ground.

"Harm her and I'll take it out of your hide," the woman says, still utterly calm, utterly cold. In the light of her own flashlight she's dark clothes and silhouette, and Ellie can't move enough to get a good look at her, but Ellie can _smell_ her, and she forces herself to take deep breaths, drawing the tang of metal and something chemical into her throat to sear it into her memory, even as it makes her gag.

"What about this one?" the omega twisting Ellie's arm asks. His grip is excruciating, but his voice is shaking, still.

The alpha woman barely turns. "Not worth wasting the bullet. Grab their weapons, see what supplies they've got. Take this one." She nods towards Dina.

The bag is over Dina's head before Ellie has time to process what she's seeing, and Dina yells and Ellie and her alpha roar as one and throws themselves against the armlock, and it's useless, _useless_ , the betas are dragging Dina along the floor and out of the building, and all Ellie can do against the weight is turn her head, gouging her chin on the concrete, and try and see the omega pinning her down.

"Please," Ellie says. She has no command here, this is not her omega, but she can pour everything into trying to make eye contact, trying to soften him. She can _beg_ "Please don't do this."

The omega stares back at her, panting with exertion, eyes wide, and she has a moment of _maybe_ before he hefts the rifle in his free hand and brings it down again, and there's nothing after that.

~*~

"Ellie!"

They're going to make her stop. She growls, deep in her throat, and keeps staring straight ahead as the dawn lightens around her, keeps slogging north-northwest, following the scent. Dina's scent.

" _Ellie!_ "

She can hear the horses now, and she keeps her gaze locked straight ahead until Joel wheels his horse around in front of her, blocking her path. The rest of the Jackson patrol are close behind -- she can smell all of them now. _Pack_ her alpha offers.

"Ellie," Joel says, and there's a tenderness, a compassion in his voice that she doesn't want a fucking thing to do with. That she doesn't deserve.

She stares up at him, and it's grounding her in a way she doesn't want – doesn't want her body with the agonising shoulder or the thudding headache. Doesn't want to look around to see that same concern in all their faces.

"She's alive," Ellie says, or tries to say, but her lips are too cracked and her throat is too dry, and she almost manages a rasp.

She grudgingly takes the waterskin he offers.

"They took her." Ellie manages the words this time, wiping her mouth. "There's three left – two alphas and an omega – by the time they got…" Her voice cracks on her, and her breath catches in her chest. She forces her next exhale, forces the rest of her intel out with closed eyes. "They put a bag over her head, they didn't hit her, one of them said they just needed the omega, and then one of them hit me." She raises her hands involuntarily to the side of her head, feels the blood crusting in her hair. She opens her eyes to the worried circle of Jackson patrollers. "We got a couple," she says.

"We saw," Joel says. "That was good work back there."

"The Seraphites…" Jesse mutters grimly.

"The fuck was _all_ of that?" Ellie demands.

Jesse grimaces and dismounts. " _That_ was the safest route we had," he says, and it's half to her, half to Joel, who's also dismounting, glowering like he's about to throw a punch. _Fuck that._ Joel is not the one Jesse needs to be worried about right now; Ellie rounds on Jesse, hard.

"You let her out, knowing – knowing whatever the fuck that was. That threat?"

"She _demanded_ to go out with you," Jesse says. "And – " He gives a wry half-smile. "You're one of the best clearer teams we've got. You work really well together."

 _We do_ she thinks, viciously. _We_ did. And it wasn't enough. It's never enough -- _Ellie's_ never enough.

Ellie turns face to Joel, partly to get herself between him and Jesse, mostly because all of this is wasting valuable time.

"They took our horses," she says. "Give me yours." She's ridden Joel's horse on a couple of patrols; she'd probably take Ellie even in full alpha.

"Hey," Joel murmurs. "We got it from here. You don't need to –"

" _Fuck_ you." She shoves him in the chest, as hard as she can. It's not much: she's exhausted, and he's still stronger than her, and less fatigued, but he lets her shove him back a few steps, and then a few more, pushing them out of the circle of concerned party members.

"You're injured," Joel says softly, levelly. "And you're almost certainly frostbit, and you're in no shape to follow us–"

"I ain't following you anywhere. I will take your horse, and I will go find --" She can't stop her voice cracking, but she ploughs on, her voice shaking. "When Riley turned, I _smelled_ it. I couldn't save her. I couldn't help Tess, couldn't help Luke, or Sam, or Marlene, or –"

"None of them were your fault –"

"The Fireflies," Ellie cuts across him with vicious precision. "You wouldn't let me be useful. You. Wouldn't. Let. Me." Joel squeezes his eyes closed, and it's Ellie's doesn't give him an inch, stays right up in his face when he opens his eyes again.

Joel opens his mouth and she growls at him, actually _growls_ at him. "I can _smell_ her," Ellie says, low and dangerous. "She's not dead, and she's not turned, and I'm gonna track her down and get her back safe. And if I can't do that, I'm gonna hunt down every last one of those motherfuckers and kill them myself."

Joel stares at her for a moment, and concedes with a respectful half-nod. "Okay."

He whistles across to someone in the rescue party and gives Ellie the reins to his mare. Ellie gets busy adjusting the stirrups. It's only once she's boosting herself into the saddle that she realizes Joel's mounting another horse, that the patrol is redistributing supplies and falling into line, ready to keep going.

"What?" Joel says. He's hanging back, waiting for her to take point. "You think we'd let you face this on your own?"

They ride out as pack, following Ellie's lead across the landscape.


End file.
